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The selfie Drone Craze

It has become apparent that these new devices “selfie drones are here to stay. But in my opinion, they fly (forgive the pun) in the face of all of the drone rules and regulations. To me they are purely made to break all of the rules regarding flying close to people and building etc. They are made to fly near you so that you can get a selfie, people are going to use these devices in places where we (Professionals) would not even contemplate using them.

Take the recent case of a gent in Hong Kong airport innocently “in his eyes” taking a selfie with his new drone. Clearly breaking all of the rules that you could possibly think of. But he is flying his selfie drone and taking a selfie that is what the camera was made for wasn’t it. I feel the issues with these devices again goes back to education, my feeling is that very little is done by the manufacturers by the way of educating the public on what they can and cannot do with their new selfie drone. The point being that if the manufacturers did highlight all of the rules and regs about when and where they can fly these things I fear they will not sell many at all. They clearly market these devices as portable, take anywhere kind of drones, just take it out of your pocket and take a “selfie” there are upload onto facebook every day, videos that people have taken with the new DJI spark in there back garden, in the middle of a town, over public gatherings. From a professionals point of view I feel the public see all drone operators as the same, whether you are a novice taking a selfie or a professional shooting video for a commercial, you are just a drone flyer and we are all tarred with the same brush of flying drones near airports and causing chaos everywhere we go. It is of course a minority of the uneducated that are causing the issues for all professionals, but I also feel that the manufacturers should play a bigger part in educating the people they are selling these amazing pieces of kit too, instead of highlighting the fact that they can be flown anywhere, “its just not true”…